THE ENVIRONMENT

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REPORTER AT LARGE about the environment which has not improved much in recent years. The nation's basic environmental law, the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 assigns to the federal Council on Environmental Quality the task of reporting on the environment. The first of the Reagan Administration's many cuts in domestic programs was a 62% reduction in the C.E.Q. budget. Writer discusses latest information on air pollution & water pollution & the newest threat toxic chemicals; radioactivity from nuclear plant accidents & the progressive depletion of ozone in the stratosphere. When the process that produces a pollutant is stopped there is considerable environmental improvement. If an effort is made to control the pollutant by recapturing or destroying it before it escapes into the environment, there is some improvement but not much. There must be a change in the technology of production to eliminate pollution. Tells about possible alternative technologies: cogenators for the electric-power industry; solar energy; organic farming small cars, mass transit & bicycle. This would be to replac the huge centralized technologies created without concern for their environmental impact which lead to nuclear power chemical agriculture & high-powered cars. The issue we face is not how to facilitate environmental quality by limiting economic development but how to create a system of production that can grow and develop in harmony with the environment.